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Ashley Johnson claimed a well-deserved man-of-the-match award in Wasps’ final regular season match against London Irish on Saturday, after mixing a typically strong ball-carrying display with some eye-catching tackling.

But after accepting the plaudits with typically charistmatic good grace, the hirsuit South African, much like everyone else in the ground, turned his thoughts immediately to the forthcoming semi-final clash with Exeter.

Johnson believes despite losing both matches, Wasps learned plenty from the experience of playing at the Chiefs’ Sandy Park home last week, and in a final-four European Cup clash against Saracens a fortnight ago.

“The Premiership semi-final is a one-off,” he says, “and we will take some lessons from playing against Saracens in a European Cup semi-final a couple of weeks ago and from playing against Exeter at Sandy Park last week.

“So we’ll go there with a couple of new ideas we can use, but above all it’s a one-off, 80 minutes then you’re in the final.

“Reputation doesn’t matter, and what you’ve done in the regular season counts for nothing if you don’t pitch up on the day.

“Hopefully we will go there with bags of confidence, knowing we have been to tough places like Saracens and Northampton and got wins there.”

Wasps’ hooker has noted with satisfaction how his club’s horizons have shifted during the last 12 months, and says Wasps have nothing to lose when they go to Sandy Park as underdogs.

“Last season we would have taken just being in the semi-final,” he says, “but we’ve grown so much as a club, and have so much ambition, we’re not satisfied with that, and know we now have a great opportunity.

“All season we’ve talked about getting to the top six, and said if we managed to get to the top four we’d give it a real crack. So that’s what we’re going to do now, and hopefully put in a good performance, then the score will take care of itself.

“The pressure is all on them, to win at home, so we’ll go there with nothing to lose and enjoy it.

“It’s not often you get to play in a Premiership semi-final - it’s my first since I’ve been at Wasps - so we’re going to take the opportunity with both hands and hopefully we can get a win.”

Looking back on the win over the Exiles, Johnson said the six tries scored suggested that the work Wasps have done following their lack of attacking threat against Sarries and the Chiefs had paid dividends.

“Before the game we knew it was potentially a banana skin for us,” he says, “and that we needed to go out and do a job.

We knew we couldn’t do anything about what happened with the Exeter game.

“It was good to get some confidence and to get our attacking structure back to where it was a couple of weeks ago, and hopefully we can take that into the semi-final.”